"Oh, it all happened so suddenly--I hardly know myself. It seems like some horrid dream--some fantastic nightmare. We came to Timber City, Win and I, to be there on our anniversary. Win is going to buy a ranch, and while he was talking business I rode out on the trail a little way, and when I returned it was dark, and there was a crowd of men in front of the saloon and they were shooting. And one of them told me there was a man inside--a Texan. Somehow, I just knew it was Tex--our Tex--the one we came to know so well and to love a year ago. So I told them to stop shooting and I would go in and try to straighten things out. Tex had been drinking a little and he was obstinate. He had defied the marshal to arrest him and he absolutely refused to submit to arrest. I don't blame him much. The marshal is a fool and he thought, or pretended to think, that Tex was some terrible desperado, and he intended to hold him in jail indefinitely until he could look up his record. "Tex managed to get out of the building and he jumped onto a horse and dashed right through the crowd, sending them sprawling in all directions. As he started down the trail they began to shoot at him, and men began to mount horses to ride after him. I knew they would kill him--and what had he done? Nothing! Except shoot a few bottles and things and break some windows--and they would have killed him for that! "I knew they wouldn't dare shoot me, so before they could get onto their horses, I swung into the trail behind him so they would have to stop shooting. On and on I dashed through the darkness. At first I could hear the sounds of pursuit, yells and curses and shots, but my horse was faster than theirs and the sounds died away. He had almost reached the river when I overtook him. His horse had gone lame and we barely made the ferry-boat ahead of the mob. He tried to send me back as he led his horse onto the ferry--but I knew that the moment he shoved off from shore those fiends would kill him--he wouldn't have had a chance. So before he could prevent me, I followed him onto the boat and cut the rope that held it and we drifted out into the river--but the men on the bank didn't dare to shoot. He would have put back then if he could, but the current was too strong and it carried us farther and farther from shore.